Nassir Ghaemi explica: "... When times are good and the ship of state only needs to sail straight, mentally healthy people function well as political leaders. But in times of crisis and tumult, those who are mentally abnormal, even ill, become the greatest leaders. We might call this the Inverse Law of Sanity.
Consider Neville Chamberlain. Before the Second World War, he was a highly respected businessman from Birmingham, a popular mayor and an esteemed chancellor of the exchequer. He was charming, sober, smart—sane.
Winston Churchill, by contrast, rose to prominence during the Boer War and the first World War. Temperamental, cranky, talkative, bombastic—he bothered many people. During the "wilderness" years of the 1930s, while the suave Chamberlain got all the plaudits, Churchill's own party rejected him.
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domingo, 31 de julho de 2011
História redescoberta: Stalin - retrato de um monstro
MONSTER: A PORTRAIT OF STALIN IN BLOOD
This six tape series, produced by Alexandre Ivankin at Contact Studio, Moscow, uses never before released films from the Russian archives and personal interviews to tell the true story of the annihilation of approximately 40 million Russians by Stalin.
Stalin an Mind Control
Episode 1
Stalin´s Secret Police
Episode 2
Stalin and the War
Episode 3
Stalins Private Life
Episode 4
This six tape series, produced by Alexandre Ivankin at Contact Studio, Moscow, uses never before released films from the Russian archives and personal interviews to tell the true story of the annihilation of approximately 40 million Russians by Stalin.
Stalin an Mind Control
Episode 1
Stalin´s Secret Police
Episode 2
Stalin and the War
Episode 3
Stalins Private Life
Episode 4
O novo fascismo
This book examines the recent development of the far right in Britain against the backdrop of changing public attitudes toward race and immigration in Britain. Focusing in particular on the British National Party (BNP) which has been the most electorally successful far right party in British history, the book examines the worrying rise in support for extremist and racist ideas.
Link
The Economist entrevista com o autor
Link
The Economist entrevista com o autor
Em Outubro a população mundial vai chegar a 7 bilhões
World Population Hits 7 Billion After Boom in Developing World
By Oliver Renick - Jul 28, 2011 5:42 PM GMT-0300
The world’s 7-billionth person will be born Oct. 31 in India, according to a projection by researchers working with data from the United Nations.
Medical advances, more effective vaccines, antibiotics and improvements in public-health conditions has boosted life expectancy in developing countries, where most of the population growth is taking place, according to the UN data reported tomorrow in the journal Science.
The number of people globally reached 1 billion in 1800, then 2 billion in 1925, the report said. Within the last half century, the population boomed to just under 7 billion from 3 billion. By 2050, the population will reach 9.3 billion, and 97 percent of the growth will be in less developed regions, said David Bloom, an economist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wrote the report.
“In the 1960s and 1970s, people expected a population bomb,” Bloom said in a telephone interview. “Now, we have mini-bombs going off in the most fragile parts of the world. Issues of inequality and poverty may spill over from less-developed countries, which will not be good for their neighbors or the rest of the world.”
Since 1970, population growth has slowed to 1 percent per year from a little over 2 percent, according to the U.N. date. Still that means that by 2050, India will overtake China as the most populous country in the world, and the U.S. will be the only developed nation among the ten most populated.
Leia mais
Veja também o youtube video: O mito da superpopulação
Medical advances, more effective vaccines, antibiotics and improvements in public-health conditions has boosted life expectancy in developing countries, where most of the population growth is taking place, according to the UN data reported tomorrow in the journal Science.
The number of people globally reached 1 billion in 1800, then 2 billion in 1925, the report said. Within the last half century, the population boomed to just under 7 billion from 3 billion. By 2050, the population will reach 9.3 billion, and 97 percent of the growth will be in less developed regions, said David Bloom, an economist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wrote the report.
“In the 1960s and 1970s, people expected a population bomb,” Bloom said in a telephone interview. “Now, we have mini-bombs going off in the most fragile parts of the world. Issues of inequality and poverty may spill over from less-developed countries, which will not be good for their neighbors or the rest of the world.”
Since 1970, population growth has slowed to 1 percent per year from a little over 2 percent, according to the U.N. date. Still that means that by 2050, India will overtake China as the most populous country in the world, and the U.S. will be the only developed nation among the ten most populated.
Leia mais
Veja também o youtube video: O mito da superpopulação
sábado, 30 de julho de 2011
O qué passou no Setembro 11, 2001?
Arquitetos e engenheiros discutem 9/11 – a queda dos torres gêmeos do World Trade Center Nova Yorksexta-feira, 29 de julho de 2011
O lado oscuro da história
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs
THE MONEY MASTERS is a NON-FICTION, historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned "central" bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers. If you like this film, please share it with a friend and support the makers by purchasing a full quality DVD here
http://www.themoneymasters.com/430-2/
NEW - Secret of Oz DVD (Updated version of The Money Masters)
http://www.themoneymasters.com/430-2/
http://www.themoneymasters.com/430-2/
NEW - Secret of Oz DVD (Updated version of The Money Masters)
http://www.themoneymasters.com/430-2/
Stalin, Nazis e o resto
World War II Behind Closed Doors
A reader of my recent LRC blog on The Soviet Story alerted me regarding the six-part BBC series, World War II Behind Closed Doors. This is not white-washed 'politically correct' court history but an exceptional documentary account based on archival information obtained after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The series powerfully shows the true barbaric nature of the conflict and the duplicity of all major leaders, from the time of the Molotov/Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact to the death of Stalin in 1953. The story told here is an incisive narrative with interviews by historical witnesses, coupled with dramatic reenactments of behind the scenes meetings and other key events. It does not pull any punches but could have been a little tougher on FDR and Harry Hopkins. The final episode on post-war events of the early Cold War is a more conventional than revisionist account. However the portrayals of the ruthless Josef Stalin and Janus-faced intriguer Winston Churchill are particularly outstanding. Churchill is not shown as the towering British lion but as the venal betrayer of Polish independence and sovereignty depicted in Norman Davies’s No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939–1945, or Ralph Raico’s magnificent Great Wars & Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal. The principal figure behind the documentary series, British historian Laurence Rees, has also authored World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis, and the West.
Guerra, tecnologia e a natureza humana
A Conversation with Author Adam Hochschild
Q: In the past you’ve written mostly about issues of human rights and social justice, but now a book about the First World War—why?
A: I’ve long been obsessed and fascinated by the war, for it remade our world for the worse in almost every conceivable way. In addition to killing approximately 20 million soldiers and civilians, the war also ignited the Russian Revolution, sowed the anger that allowed Hitler to seize power, and permanently darkened our outlook on human nature and human self-destructiveness. But also I’ve always seen the war as a time when men and women faced a moral challenge as great as that faced by those who lived, say, in the time of slavery. Tens of thousands of people were wise enough to foresee, in 1914, the likely bloodshed that a war among the world’s major industrial powers would cause—and, courageously, they refused to take part.
Q: What are you trying to do in To End All Wars that makes it different from other books about the First World War?
A: Most books about any war, including this one, tell the story as a conflict between two sides. Instead, I’ve tried to tell the story of 1914–1918 as a struggle between those who felt the war was something noble and necessary, and those who felt it was absolute madness.
Q: Were there war resisters on both sides?
A: Yes. But I’ve concentrated on one country, Britain. For various reasons—a major one being that at the war’s outset Britain itself was not attacked—there was a stronger antiwar movement there than anywhere else. More than 20,000 British men of military age refused the draft, and, as a matter of principle, many also refused the non-combatant alternative service offered to conscientious objectors, such as working in war industries or driving ambulances. More than 6,000 of these young men went to prison under very harsh conditions, as did some brave, outspoken critics of the war. This is one of the largest groups of people ever behind bars for political reasons in a Western democracy—and certainly one of the most interesting. Their number included the country’s leading investigative journalist, a future Nobel Prize-winner, more than half a dozen future members of Parliament, and a former editor who would publish a clandestine prison newspaper on sheets of toilet paper.
Q: So the book is just about them?
A: Not only. I am equally intrigued by the people who fought the war, such as the generals who always thought the next battle was going to be the big breakthrough, and kept the cavalry ready to charge through the gap—which never came, of course. So my cast of characters includes both resisters and those who fought. And there are interesting ties between them. Few people know, for instance, that Britain’s commander-in-chief on the Western Front for the first year and a half of combat had a sister who was an ardent, vocal pacifist. Or that the Minister for War had close friends whose son was not only in jail as a resister but was in solitary confinement for refusing to obey prison rules. Two well-known sisters, the suffragettes Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, broke with each other so bitterly over the war that they each edited a newspaper that attacked the other.
Q: Are all of your characters well-known?
A: Not at all. Albert Rochester was a soldier who got into trouble for writing a letter to a newspaper complaining that every British officer had his own private servant. John S. Clarke was an antiwar radical, working underground—who in his youth had made his living as a circus lion-tamer. Emily Hobhouse believed the nations of Europe should be negotiating, not fighting. She evaded British government travel restrictions, went to Berlin in 1916 and talked peace terms with the foreign minister—the sole private citizen in Europe who actually traveled to the other side in search of peace. You couldn’t invent people like this.
Q: What were your sources of information?
A: When I write history, I like to hear people’s own voices, so as much as possible I relied on personal letters, diaries, memoirs and the like. But there was one additional, unexpected, rich trove of material. In 1914–1918, both civilian and military intelligence agents watched the Britain’s antiwar activists intently. They infiltrated spies into peace organizations, sometimes sent in agents provocateurs to try to get pacifists to do things they could be arrested for, and at even the smallest public antiwar meeting, one of Scotland Yard’s dozen shorthand writers would be there taking notes. These agents’ reports, even those of the agents provocateurs bragging about what they accomplished, are in Britain’s National Archives, some of them opened to public view for the first time only in the last few years.
quinta-feira, 28 de julho de 2011
Um romance que prevê o futuro
In a beguiling mix of humor, pathos, and intrigue--Gary Shteyngart has written a topical, disturbing, and believably prescient satire of the near future. Taking cues from his previous works "Absurdistan" and "The Russian Debutante's Handbook," protagonist Lenny Abramov is of Russian descent. From a Jewish immigrant family settled in New York, Lenny has achieved some success selling immortality to the upper echelon of the income bracket. In a technological world, success is not only measured--it is broadcast. Receivers transmit instant credit ratings, personal communication devices evaluate attractiveness quotients, and books have become a digitized (not to be read, but to be scanned for information). It is, to be sure, a world of instant gratification where to be without media is to be devoid of life itself. K. Harris
O efeito do uso de maconha (cannabis) sobre funções cognitivas
Cannabis use and Cognitive Function: Eight Year Trajectory in a Young Adult Cohort.
Source
Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University. Canberra, ACT, 0200 Centre for Youth Mental Health (Orygen Research Centre), The University of Melbourne Melbourne, VIC, 3010.Abstract
Aim: To evaluated the relationship between change in cannabis use and changed cognitive performance over eight years. Design: We used survey methodology with a cohort design. Setting & Participants: An Australian community sample aged 20-24 at baseline. Measures: We assessed cognitive performance with, the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) (immediate and delayed) spot-the-word test (STW), symbol digit modality test (SDMT) and digit backwards (DB). Groups of cannabis users were defined from self-reports across three waves as: "never" (n = 420) "remain light" (n = 71), "former light" (n = 231), "remain heavy" (n = 60), "former heavy" (n = 60) and "always former" (since start of study) (n = 679). Planned contrasts within mixed model repeated measures ANOVA was used for longitudinal analysis with an adjusted alpha of .01. Findings: Data were obtained from 2404 participants with 1978 (82%) completing wave three. At baseline there were significant differences between cannabis groups on CVLT (immediate and delayed) and SDMT. However, after controlling for education, gender, gender by group and gender by wave, there were no significant between group differences and only CVLT immediate recall reached adjusted statistically significant longitudinal change associated with changed cannabis use (group by wave p= .009). Specifically, former heavy users improved their performance relative to remaining heavy users (estimated marginal means: former heavy 6.1 to 7.5: remain heavy 6.4 to 6.6). Conclusions: Cessation of cannabis use appears to be associated with an improvement in capacity for recall of information that has just been learned. No other measures of cognitive performance were related to cannabis after controlling for confounds.© 2011 The Authors, Addiction © 2011 Society for the Study of Addiction.
Source
Grande governo - mau governo
"Most bad government has grown out of too much government." -- atribuído ao Thomas Jefferson
quarta-feira, 27 de julho de 2011
Não tem seres extraterrestres
O fato que tem vida na terra não implica que tem vida no cosmos, assim argumentam David Spiegel (Princeton) e Edwin Turner (Tokyo) em uma nova pesquisa:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.3835v1.pdf
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.3835v1.pdf
O milagre do mercado e o seu inimigo
Editorial Reviw
We are surrounded by miracles created in the private sector, particularly in the digital universe, and yet we don't appreciate them enough. Meanwhile, the public sector is systematically wrecking the physical world in sneaky and petty ways that really do matter. Jeffrey Tucker, in It's a Jetsons World, draws detailed attention to both. He points out that the products of digital capitalism are astounding — more outrageously advanced than anything the makers of the Jetsons could even imagine. Indeed the pace of change is mind-boggling. The world is being reinvented in our lifetimes, every day. Email has only been mainstream for 15 years or so, and young people now regard it as a dated form of communication used only for the most formal of correspondence. And no one uses the telephone unless a call has already been scheduled in advance. Oddly, hardly anyone seems to care, and even fewer care about the institutional force that makes all this progress possible — the market economy. Instead, we just adjust to the new reality. We even hear of the grave problem of "miracle fatigue" — too much great stuff, too often. Truly, this new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all. And why? We absorb amazing things and don't think much about their source or the system that produces them. We don't appreciate the market.
The Jetsons' world of rapid innovation is our world, but there is one major difference — and it isn't the flying car, which we might already have were it not for the government's promotion of roads and the central plan that manages transportation. It is this: we also live in the midst of a gigantic Leviathan state that seeks to control every aspect of our life down to the smallest detail. This is what keeps getting in our way. With good, incisive economic sense and an indelible wit, this book will inspire love for free markets — and loathing of government.
We are surrounded by miracles created in the private sector, particularly in the digital universe, and yet we don't appreciate them enough. Meanwhile, the public sector is systematically wrecking the physical world in sneaky and petty ways that really do matter. Jeffrey Tucker, in It's a Jetsons World, draws detailed attention to both. He points out that the products of digital capitalism are astounding — more outrageously advanced than anything the makers of the Jetsons could even imagine. Indeed the pace of change is mind-boggling. The world is being reinvented in our lifetimes, every day. Email has only been mainstream for 15 years or so, and young people now regard it as a dated form of communication used only for the most formal of correspondence. And no one uses the telephone unless a call has already been scheduled in advance. Oddly, hardly anyone seems to care, and even fewer care about the institutional force that makes all this progress possible — the market economy. Instead, we just adjust to the new reality. We even hear of the grave problem of "miracle fatigue" — too much great stuff, too often. Truly, this new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all. And why? We absorb amazing things and don't think much about their source or the system that produces them. We don't appreciate the market.
The Jetsons' world of rapid innovation is our world, but there is one major difference — and it isn't the flying car, which we might already have were it not for the government's promotion of roads and the central plan that manages transportation. It is this: we also live in the midst of a gigantic Leviathan state that seeks to control every aspect of our life down to the smallest detail. This is what keeps getting in our way. With good, incisive economic sense and an indelible wit, this book will inspire love for free markets — and loathing of government.
História escondida
Editorial Review
2010 Director's Edition of Edvins Snore's award-winning documentary, now with subtitles in 30 languages. Tells the story of the Soviet regime and how the Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the Holocaust. Other topics covered by the film: - The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932/33) - The Katyn massacre (1940) - The SS-KGB partnership - French Communists and the Nazis - Soviet mass deportations - Medical experiments in the GULAG. The Soviet Story was filmed over 2 years in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, France, UK and Belgium. The film includes recently uncovered archive documents and interviews with former Soviet Military intelligence officials. As a result, The Soviet Story presents a truly unique insight into recent Soviet history, told by people, once Soviet citizens, who have first-hand knowledge of it. The Soviet Story also discusses the impact of the Soviet legacy on modern day Europe. Listen to experts and European MPs discussing the implications of a selective attitude towards mass murder; and meet a woman describing the burial of her new born son in a GULAG concentration camp. The Soviet Story is a story of pain, injustice and realpolitik. The DVD contains the full 85 minute documentary feature, 25 minutes of bonus interviews & full color film booklet. The film is in English and the DVD includes subtitles in 30 languages.
Encontranda a verdade pela eliminação de alternativas
“When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Poligamia
The Economist:
Marriage markets
The polygamy tax
Jul 25th 2011, 18:44 by A.S. | NEW YORK
SUNDAY marked the first day gay couples were allowed to marry in New York State. This provoked an unusual New York Times op-ed by lawyer Jonathan Turley. He reminds us of another group being robbed of their basic rights of citizenship—polygamists.
Comentário: Quando começa - onde parar?
terça-feira, 26 de julho de 2011
Expiração de patentes de medicinas
Expiring patents mean wave of generics will hit market
The cost of prescription medicines used by millions of people every day is about to plummet.
The next 14 months will bring generic versions of seven of the world's 20 best-selling drugs, including the top two: Cholesterol fighter Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix.The magnitude of this wave of expiring drugs patents is unprecedented. Between now and 2016, blockbusters with about $255 billion in global annual sales are set to go off patent, notes EvaluatePharma Ltd., a London research firm. Generic competition will decimate sales of the brand-name drugs and slash the cost to patients and companies that provide health benefits.
Top drugs getting generic competition by September 2012 are taken by millions every day: Lipitor alone is taken by about 4.3 million Americans and Plavix by 1.4 million. Generic versions of big-selling drugs for blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, depression, high triglycerides, HIV and bipolar disorder also are coming by then.
The flood of generics will continue for the next decade or so, as about 120 brand-name prescription drugs lose market exclusivity, according to prescription benefit manager Medco Health Solutions Inc.
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segunda-feira, 25 de julho de 2011
Cerveja e liberdade
Matt Zwolinski explica:
A bebida da liberdade
Eu sou um amante da cerveja artesanal, e um cervejeiro. E a verdade é que a liberdade favorece a boa cerveja.
Leia mais
Leia o original
O novo mundo de publicação acadêmica: repositórios
Veja os top 15 de mais de 1184 "repositories"
Veja os outros dos1184 repositories
First | Previous | Next | Last | | |||||||
| POSITION | |||||||
 | |||||||
| WORLD RANK | REPOSITORY | COUNTRY | SIZE | VISIBILITY | RICH FILES | SCHOLAR | |
| 1 | Social Science Research Network |  | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | |
| 2 | Arxiv.org e-Print Archive | | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | |
| 3 | CiteSeerX | | 2 | 1 | 924 | 2 | |
| 4 | Research Papers in Economics |  | 1 | 5 | 201 | 4 | |
| 5 | CERN Document Server |  | 4 | 20 | 2 | 8 | |
| 6 | Kyoto University Research Information Repository |  | 13 | 8 | 6 | 22 | |
| 7 | Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System | | 15 | 4 | 839 | 1 | |
| 8 | National Taiwan University Repository |  | 37 | 9 | 32 | 7 | |
| 9 | Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers | | 41 | 12 | 49 | 24 | |
| 10 | HAL Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société |  | 57 | 11 | 58 | 36 | |
| 11 | Munich Personal RepEc Archive |  | 49 | 26 | 17 | 29 | |
| 12 | Digital Library and Archives Virginia Tech University | | 56 | 21 | 15 | 38 | |
| 13 | University of Michigan Deep Blue | | 30 | 43 | 11 | 30 | |
| 14 | Universidade de São Paulo Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações |  | 34 | 49 | 13 | 9 | |
| 15 | MIT Dspace | | 26 | 72 | 7 | 12 | |
Veja os outros dos1184 repositories
domingo, 24 de julho de 2011
Pesquisa renumerada
A Secretaria de Assuntos Legislativos (SAL) do Ministério da Justiça acaba de lançar edital para selecionar instituições acadêmicas que desenvolverão pesquisas em oito áreas temáticas. Cada equipe (cuja recomendação é de ter composição interdisciplinar) receberá R$ 75 mil, valor que pode ser aumentado em R$ 10 mil caso haja participação de pesquisadores vinculados a instituições do Norte e Nordeste para fins de consolidação de redes inter-regionais de pesquisa. O projeto receberá propostas até o dia 15 de agosto.
Criado em 2007 para estreitar laços com a academia e qualificar o trabalho de elaboração normativa do Ministério da Justiça, o projeto oferece apoio para estudos nos seguintes assuntos:
- Lei de Execução Penal
- Banco de perfis genéticos para fins de persecução criminal
- Crime de cartel e a reparação de danos no Poder Judiciário brasileiro
- Modernização do sistema de convênio da Administração Pública com a sociedade civil
- Sistema nacional de ouvidorias públicas
- Recuperação de terras públicas e modernização do sistema de registro de imóveis
- Regime jurídico de cooperativas populares e economia solidária
- Internalização das normativas do MERCOSUL
Até o momento, foram lançadas 32 publicações da Série Pensando o Direito. Em 2010, o projeto teve um importante reconhecimento: recebeu o Prêmio ENAP de Inovação na Gestão Pública Federal.
Os resultados finais das pesquisas deverão ser sistematizados e entregues à Secretaria de Assuntos Legislativos até o dia 12 de março de 2012. A SAL terá ainda dois meses para organizar seminários de apresentação e debate sobre as pesquisas produzidas pelas equipes além de lançar novas publicações durante o primeiro semestre de 2012.
Esclarecimentos ou informações adicionais deverão ser solicitados por escrito para o endereço pensandoodireito@mj.gov.br, destacando como assunto “Projeto Pensando o Direito”. O edital da convocação 001/2011 consta no site do Ministério da Justiça.
Contamos com a colaboração de todos para a divulgação dessa iniciativa.
Atenciosamente,
Consultor do PNUD - SAL/MJ
Projeto Pensando o Direito
(61)2025-9767
Prêmio IBGC Itaú Academia e Imprensa
IBGC abre inscrições para o Prêmio IBGC Itaú Academia e Imprensa. A premiação contempla três autores em cada uma de suas categorias: Imprensa e Academia.
Os interessados podem se inscrever até o dia 15 de agosto.
Para saber mais sobre cada categoria, clique abaixo: 
Mais informações
Os interessados podem se inscrever até o dia 15 de agosto.
Para saber mais sobre cada categoria, clique abaixo:
Mais informações
Centro Adam Smith Argentina
Estimado Lector,
Es una gran alegría el relanzamiento de la Revista Digital “Orden Espontáneo” del Centro Adam Smith perteneciente a la Fundación Libertad. A partir de este número se publicará bimestralmente.
(Haga click en la imagen para acceder a la revista)
La presente edición incluye la primera parte de una entrevista exclusiva al Filósofo Gabriel Zanotti, uno de los más importantes exponentes del Liberalismo Clásico y la Austríaca de Economía. Nos proponemos en ella hacer un recorrido por los diversos temas tratados a lo largo de su carrera, llegando a los motivos que hicieron que su estudio se convirtiera en una necesidad intelectual y una forma de vida. El Prof. Zanotti se encarga de demostrar personalmente que, como dijo hace poco, “la vida y obra de un autor son una sola”.
Continuamos con un artículo de Matías Spelta, coordinador del Centro Adam Smith y editor de esta revista, donde analiza la ley anti-tabaco recientemente sancionada en Argentina. Allí el autor expone los argumentos por los que considera que una ley de este tipo es contradictoria con una sociedad libre.
Por último, publicamos la traducción al español de “Individual and Society: Irreconlable Enemies?” (El Individuo y la Sociedad: ¿enemigos irreconciliables?) escrito por Tibor Machan y publicado originalmente en la prestigiosa revista The Freeman. Muy en relación con el trabajo anterior, Machan afirma “Un ‘derecho’ individual que puede declararse inválido a voluntad, siempre que se incomode o cause molestias a otros, no es de ningún modo un derecho sino un simple privilegio que se concede en forma temporaria.”
Desde Fundación Libertad aprovechamos la ocasión para saludarlos y esperamos que disfruten de esta nueva edición de la Revista Digital.
Para acceder al resto de las ediciones haga click aquí.
Saluda atentamente,
Matías Spelta
Coordnador Centro Adam Smith
Editor Revista Digital Orden Espontáneo
Participe: seminário na Califórnia
2011 Summer Seminars for College Students
August 1-5, 2010
Notre Dame de Namur University
Belmont, California
August 1-5, 2010
Notre Dame de Namur University
Belmont, California
| With our college student seminar, The Challenge of Liberty, just weeks away, there is still time to register! Open to undergraduate and graduate students, this week-long course features talks by some of the Independent Institute’s leading lights, including Senior Fellow Robert Higgs and Research Editor Anthony Gregory. Topics include: “Free Market Competition, Cooperation, and the Spontaneous Order”; “Money and Banking Without the State”; “A Century of Crisis and Leviathan”; and much more. Held at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, Calif., students will have the opportunity to stay on the beautiful campus throughout the week and enjoy the facilities including magnificent Bay Area views, a pool, athletic fields, a cafeteria, and dorm common areas. In addition to our excellent faculty line-up, Gregory Rehmke will be serving as our Seminar Director. For over 20 years Greg has directed educational programs for high school and college students at the Center for the American Idea, Reason Foundation and the Foundation for Economic Education. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity and register today! |
Tecnologia e mudança social
Vídeo palestra de Jeff Tucker sobre "Technology and Social Change" da serie Economia da Escola Austríaca para estudantes
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZdD3WtCHM&feature=related
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZdD3WtCHM&feature=related
sábado, 23 de julho de 2011
Uma sociedade sem estado é possível?
The Conscience of an Anarchist, by Gary Chartier
A compelling case for a stateless society.
Anarchy happens when people organize their lives peacefully and voluntarily— without the aggressive violence of the state. This simple but powerful book explains why the state is illegitimate, unnecessary, and dangerous, and what we can do to begin achieving real freedom. Paperback, 129 pages.
A compelling case for a stateless society.
Anarchy happens when people organize their lives peacefully and voluntarily— without the aggressive violence of the state. This simple but powerful book explains why the state is illegitimate, unnecessary, and dangerous, and what we can do to begin achieving real freedom. Paperback, 129 pages.
Como progresso tecnológico realmente acontece
“The early aircraft business resembled that of the shade-tree mechanics who, in building hot rods, gave rise, then as now, to true advances in automobile design. See also the chopper shops of California and their influence on the world of motorcycling. A list of these shade-tree mechanics includes the Wrights, Cyris McCormick, Henry Ford, Tesla, Tom Edison, Meg Whitman, Bill Gates, Burt Rutan, and Steve Jobs. How would they and American industry have fared had government gotten its hands upon them at the outset – if it had taxed away the capital necessary to provide a market for their wares; if it had taxed away the wealth, which, existing as gambling money, had taken a chance on these various visionaries? One need not wonder, but merely look around at the various businesses that government has aided. And now it has taken over health care.”
- David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge, page 79
- David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge, page 79
A revolução da indústria de publicação
Why and How I Self-Published a Book
- Posted by James Altucher
I’ve written a prior post on my sales and advances on first five books which were all published with major publishers. (Also, including a part about how my wife finally fell for me). But I’m never going to publish in the morgue of the publishing industry again. This post today is about why I did it and how you can do it.
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sexta-feira, 22 de julho de 2011
Não só no Brasil
The largest school cheating scandal in the history of the United States was recently uncovered in the Atlanta area. Dozens of teachers and principles were involved according to a recently released 413 page report….
More than three quarters of the 56 schools investigated cheated on a 2009 standardized state test, with 178 educators implicated, including 38 principals. Eighty-two teachers confessed to erasing students’ answers and correcting tests. The report says widespread cheating has occurred since at least 2001 and that orders to cheat came from the top.
quinta-feira, 21 de julho de 2011
Decisões financeiras: emocionais, irracionais, catastróficas
Minding the Markets: An Emotional Finance View of Financial Instability. By David Tuckett. Palgrave Macmillan; 256 pages; $40 and £26. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
The Devil’s Derivatives: The Untold Story of the Slick Traders and Hapless Regulators Who Almost Blew Up Wall Street…and Are Ready to Do It Again. By Nicholas Dunbar. Harvard Business Review Press; 289 pages; $27.95 and £17.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
FINANCIAL writers gorged themselves on the credit crunch of 2007 and 2008, producing many different kinds of books. Some of the best were broad-brush overviews (Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “Too Big to Fail”), exposés of the failed firms (William Cohan’s “House of Cards”) and profiles of those who made money out of the crash (“The Greatest Trade Ever” by Gregory Zuckerman). To say something new, writers now have to take a sideways look at the crisis.
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The Devil’s Derivatives: The Untold Story of the Slick Traders and Hapless Regulators Who Almost Blew Up Wall Street…and Are Ready to Do It Again. By Nicholas Dunbar. Harvard Business Review Press; 289 pages; $27.95 and £17.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
FINANCIAL writers gorged themselves on the credit crunch of 2007 and 2008, producing many different kinds of books. Some of the best were broad-brush overviews (Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “Too Big to Fail”), exposés of the failed firms (William Cohan’s “House of Cards”) and profiles of those who made money out of the crash (“The Greatest Trade Ever” by Gregory Zuckerman). To say something new, writers now have to take a sideways look at the crisis.
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O perigoso "consenso científico"
Michael Crichton explica: "...let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever.
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.
Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra.
The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.
Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period." -- Michael Crichton
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever.
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.
Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra.
The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.
Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period." -- Michael Crichton
Medicina moderna
- Patients are no longer viewed and treated like unique individuals; instead, they are treated like numbers on an actuarial table.
- Physicians are no longer regarded by society (and themselves) as thoughtful and caring practitioners; instead, they are regarded as mindless automatons.
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Leia também: "Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science"Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.
quarta-feira, 20 de julho de 2011
Em favor de países pequenos
From F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1994 50th anniversary edition), p. 257, commenting on the appropriate size of European governments after World War II:
"We shall not rebuild civilization on the large scale. It is no accident that on the whole there was more beauty and decency to be found in the life of the small peoples, and that among the large ones there was more happiness and content in proportion as they had avoided the deadly blight of centralization. . .Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government. . .Where the scope of the political measures becomes so large that the necessary knowledge is almost exclusively possessed by the bureaucracy, the creative impulses of the private person must flag. I believe that here the experience of the small countries like Holland and Switzerland contains much from which even the most fortunate larger countries like Great Britain can learn. We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in."
Link para o e-book: O Caminho da Servidão
A destruição criativa do progresso tecnológico - o fim de Kodak e Fuji
Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/markets/bonds/11/07/1782031/is-kodak-going-bankrupt-fast#ixzz1SfsZTGPX
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